If Joe Biden professing devout Catholicism while aggressively pushing anti-Catholic, pro-abortion policy at home and abroad bothers you, buckle up. The hypocrisy is not confined to the Oval Office. Research is uncovering Planned Parenthood relationships and promotion at scores of American colleges and universities that claim an active affiliation with Christian churches. And while the COVID-19 vaccine has many hoping for the restoration of normalcy and widespread on-campus learning, Christian schools should focus their attention combatting the virus of Big Abortion that is infecting their institutions. These schools are jeopardizing their very mission and identity as Christian establishments, and our team at Students for Life is committed to ensuring these dangerous relationships don’t fester in silence.     

In our ongoing research, Students for Life has found and documented Planned Parenthood snaking its way onto Christian campuses under the guise of being a health and wellness “resource” for students, a hub for career and internship opportunities, a partner on campus events and education initiatives, and a rotation stop for Christian medical students. SFLA’s Director of Programs, Mary Briganti, spearheaded our research into Planned Parenthood’s relationship with Christian schools. Briganti stated: “The bad news is that Planned Parenthood has invaded a lot of Christian campuses. The good news is that when Christian school administrations find out how much this bothers believers, some are willing kick Planned Parenthood to the curb.”   

In a forthcoming report, SFLA will break down the data we’ve gathered on the disturbing relationship between Planned Parenthood and the Christian schools to which believing Americans are currently donating and sending their children for a formative education. The first 25 school names have been released here. Meanwhile, we are issuing an urgent reminder that Planned Parenthood is not a safe or ethical entity for college students. While its presence on campuses is not shocking given the organization’s M.O. of preying on the most vulnerable populations of women -- especially those in college and in underprivileged minority communities -- it’s worth briefly reviewing why Planned Parenthood’s presence on any college campus should spur Christians to act right away.    

Planned Parenthood has a documented history of not reporting the sexual abuse and assault of young women and girls. Many of the schools we reviewed, including Fordham University in New York (Catholic) and Southwestern University in Texas (Methodist), list Planned Parenthood as a student resource. For countless victims of sexual assault, Planned Parenthood is anything but a “resource.” These include 14-year-old “Jane Roe,” who was taken to Planned Parenthood after being raped by her soccer coach. Planned Parenthood did not report the suspected abuse despite multiple red flags, and later settled Roe’s case. Similar stories of Planned Parenthood’s horrifying failure to be a protective resource for sex abuse victims are legion. No school should list Planned Parenthood as a resource, but it’s especially egregious when a Christian school that proclaims Biblical justice and care for the most vulnerable makes its students vulnerable to this harm.  

Furthermore, Planned Parenthood is not offering the resources that large numbers of pregnant and parenting students actually need. One in five college students is pregnant or parenting, yet new polling commissioned by SFLA found that only 45% of Millennials and Gen Z respondents have seen resources of any kind available to pregnant and parenting students on their campuses. Only two in ten respondents had basic knowledge of federal Title IX protections that exist for pregnant and parenting students. Schools -- especially Christian schools -- should focus their efforts not on promoting an abortion behemoth, but on educating and equipping students with the information and resources they need to thrive in college no matter what challenges -- including pregnancy or parenting -- may arise.   

Another cause of concern to Christians is Planned Parenthood’s racism and eugenic goals. While Planned Parenthood has recently scrambled to minimize its racist past, the reality is that the group aggressively targets communities of color to sell abortion, which disproportionately kills Black children (in New York City, only 723 more Black babies were born than aborted in 2017).  

Planned Parenthood was founded by prominent eugenicist Margaret Sanger on the belief that only the “fit” members of humanity -- as defined by white elites like Sanger -- had a right to live. Eugenicists envisioned the “unfit” of humanity being sterilized or segregated -- a dream that culminated in Planned Parenthood openly destroying children in the womb on the basis of their wantedness, ability, or convenience to society. Today, Planned Parenthood is the largest purveyor of child-killing in the United States, targeting and snuffing out the lives of 972 children a day --354,871 per year, according to its own annual report. Even if Planned Parenthood were to stop killing children and harming women, its core eugenic philosophy is incompatible with the Christian worldview, and it’s time all Christian schools stood firm for this basic truth.    

If your school or your child’s school is partnered with the abortion industry, we urge you to contact school administrators and urge them to cut ties. Pro-lifers across the country are respectfully but firmly urging schools to cut ties with Planned Parenthood. And we have seen schools disassociate from the abortion industry after their Christian values were called into question by those concerned about the Planned Parenthood connection. If Christian schools cannot set the paradigm of rejecting the violence and danger of the abortion industry, who will?  

Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and SFLAction, with more than 1,250 groups in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins and subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.

Image: Planned Parenthood